Brazil

Tropical national park covers 9.6 million acres

A northern swath of Amazon rainforest bigger than Maryland and likely containing a treasure trove of undiscovered animal, insect and plant species became the world’s largest tropical national park Thursday.

President Fernando Henrique Cardoso signed a decree creating the Tumucumaque (too-moo-koo-MAH-kee) Mountains National Park covering a virtually uninhabited region of virgin rainforest in Amapa state, along Brazil’s northern borders with Surinam and Guyana.

Tumucumaque, which means “the rock on top of the mountain” in the language of the Apalai and Wayana Indians, covers 9.6 million acres of forest-blanketed mountains with granite outcroppings rising up to 2,300 feet above the forest canopy.

“With the creation of Tumucumaque Mountains National Park, we are ensuring the protection of one of the most pristine forests remaining in the world,” Cardoso said.

The move is one of several environmental measures the government is preparing ahead of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which starts Monday in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Toronto

Canadians concerned about ‘long goodbye’

Prime Minister Jean Chretien dismissed concern Thursday that his decision to step down in 18 months would bring more of the party infighting that has Canadians believing their government is nearly paralyzed.

Chretien’s announcement Wednesday that he would not seek a fourth straight term triggered fears that the wait until he steps down dubbed the “long goodbye” was too long and the fight to succeed him would leave his Liberal Party incapable of governing effectively.

“If the party lets (Chretien) get away with it, it will not help the Liberals to ‘complete our work,’ as he put it yesterday. It will bring work to a grinding halt,” The Globe and Mail newspaper said Thursday in an editorial.

Chretien denied that at a news conference following a Liberal Party caucus meeting in Saguenay, Quebec. Asked if 18 months was too long, he responded: “No. Next.”

Colombia

Government to recruit 20,000 armed peasants

President Alvaro Uribe’s government plans to arm 20,000 peasants to support the armed forces in the fight against outlawed rebel and paramilitary groups, Colombia’s defense minister said Thursday.

The recruits will receive military training and a small salary paid for by a new 1.2 percent war tax being imposed on higher-income businesses and individuals in Colombia, Defense Minister Martha Lucia Ramirez said in a radio interview.

Analysts and human rights monitors say the plan risks turning neutral civilians into targets of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, or the paramilitaries.

Paris

Brother swaps places with jailed suspect

A suspected Basque terrorist escaped from a high-security Paris prison by switching places with his brother during a visit, prison officials said Thursday.

The switch at Sante prison took place Saturday but was only discovered Thursday. An investigation was under way into how the brothers escaped prison controls.

The escapee, Ismael Berasategui Escudero, is a suspected member of the Basque separatist movement ETA. He was arrested May 14 in southern France. The brother who took his place in prison was held Thursday for questioning and could be investigated on charges of helping an escape. His name was not revealed.

Moscow

Russia mourns military killed in helicopter crash

Flags flew at half-staff Thursday across Russia as the country mourned 116 people killed when a packed helicopter crashed in Chechnya. President Vladimir Putin blamed the military for ignoring an order not to use the craft to transport troops.

The giant Mi-26 helicopter went down Monday in a minefield outside the Khankala military headquarters near Chechnya’s capital, Grozny. The latest victim died overnight.

Investigators said they found part of a mobile missile launcher near the wreckage, lending credence to rebel claims they shot down the aircraft. However, prosecutors also are considering technical malfunctions and overloading as causes.

“Today we are more inclined (to think) it was a missile, and maybe not just one,” Gennady Troshev, commander of Russian forces in the region, said on ORT television Thursday.

Mexico City

Fox says he hopes to reschedule trip

President Vicente Fox hopes to reschedule a trip to Texas that he canceled in protest of the execution of a Mexican-American prisoner last week, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

Fox was scheduled to travel Aug. 26-28 to four Texas cities and President Bush’s ranch but canceled the trip to protest the execution of Javier Suarez Medina, who Fox said was Mexican. The trip could be rescheduled for the first quarter of next year, spokeswoman Alicia Buenrostro said.

Fox argued the execution was illegal because Suarez was never informed of his right to legal help from the Mexican consulate. U.S. officials said it was never clear whether Suarez was born in the United States or Mexico.